One - Why Policy, Why Comparison?

Summary

COMPARATIVE; adjective

• – measured or judged by estimating the similarity or dissimilarity between one thing and another; relative: ‘he returned to the comparative comfort of his own home’

• – involving the systematic observation of the similarities or dissimilarities between two or more branches of science or subjects of study: ‘comparative religion’

• – from Latin comparativus, from comparare: ‘to pair, match’ (Oxford Languages)

We compare things every day. Restaurants, mobile phone plans, holiday destinations, weather: they are all subject to comparison. We also compare ourselves every day (my steps, my productivity, my learning, my coffee intake): against family and friends, our past or future selves, and our acquaintances and their social media feeds, with the constant exhortations to accrue experiences and live your best life. All these activities are predicated upon there being some objective benefit that comes from comparing things, as well as the ability to recognize differences between notionally commensurate (or comparable) things. For sure, a Thai restaurant is clearly not an Italian restaurant, but at least we can judge them by which one makes the more appealing dishes as a restaurant.

To this end, comparison is arguably a useful, and perhaps even necessary, tool for our survival, both individually and socially. We pick the safer of two travel routes or the more efficacious medicine, or we plant the more resilient of two food crops. However, we also need to consider what is gained and what is lost in the act of comparing. What is gained is a sense of comprehensibility that comes from making otherwise different things commensurate: you do not need to know the intricacies of Thai cuisine to understand that it is like an Italian restaurant, insofar as both offer (hopefully tasty) dishes for sale. The unknown is thus rendered less important, and a decision on where to eat can now be made a little more readily. At the same time, what is lost is our ability to engage with the unknown. We lose the ability to appreciate the unexplored intricacies of Thai cuisine, or to know it as anything other than something that is like Italian.